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The best event leaders know their people are their most valuable assets. Accordingly, they place a premium on bringing the right personnel together and putting them in the right places to build relationships that drive event success.

Hiring and training are only part of the equation. The next step is placing their personnel in staffing positions in an optimal capacity to maximize impact.

As the event marketing industry continues to evolve and expand post-pandemic, and good people are harder to find, this mission critical task is becoming even more challenging.

Many event leaders have pushed the envelope into new ways of developing creative experiences and engaging participants with audience-centric messaging. They've found new ways to enhance event experiences by tapping into the metaverse.

At the end of the day, it's the people and relationships that matter most and event leaders have brought people together from all corners of the world with virtual and hybrid events.

Such innovation adds layers of sophistication to event planning and execution. It's no longer about selecting the right personnel for a single event, but about positioning the right mix of talent, assets, and support staff for maximum impact.

Event program staffing and scheduling quickly become complicated when event leaders must allocate resources for dozens or hundreds of events, each dependent on a diverse pool of staff members.

Vice Presidents, Directors of Events and other event leaders are under tremendous pressure to drive successful outcomes for their event programs. As the event marketing industry expands, it's increasingly difficult to organize the chaos of planning many events at once. It's hard enough to keep up, much less devote time to strategic decision-making processes.

One of the greatest effects COVID-19 has had on our society is the complete and total upheaval of patterns in our day-to-day lives. The way we used to do things has changed - we are more commonly working from home, we are minimizing interactions with people while maximizing distances, face coverings are commonplace, and we’ve replaced talking about sports and kids’ schoolwork with infection rates and ‘staying safe.’ These changes have profoundly affected how we do business in the events industry as well, and with the production of auto shows and experiential marketing events.

The global pandemic caused by the coronavirus has the live events industry knocked down, but not out. Several research studies released late last year and early this year found event marketers strongly optimistic about growth prospects. That growth hasn't necessarily disappeared, it's just been delayed.

In January, the outlook for the events industry appeared bright through 2020. Obviously, that's changed.

Event professionals of all types—from corporations, associations, vendors, and agencies—and from around the world are "very optimistic" about the outlook for the events industry in the coming year.

In part 1 of this series, we asked a group of top professionals how event planners most commonly go about selecting venues today. They shared their observations about current practices.

One of the first activities in planning an event—after setting the goals and creating an initial rough-cut budget—is choosing the venue.

According to recent industry research from American Express, most event professionals are optimistic about the outlook for 2020. But many are also concerned about budget constraints, particularly given the increasing expectations of attendees for unique event experiences.

Event professionals use many different words to describer their world: Vital. Stressful. Exciting. Exhausting. Rewarding.

Budgets for experiential marketing are growing, though quantifying the value of live events remains a challenge. A clear majority of both brand-side and agency pros believe that diversity and inclusion are important in event strategy, but both groups also feel they are doing a pretty good job in this area.

Event professionals understand the value of live, face-to-face interaction for building brand credibility and engagement. Digital marketing is more about increasing brand reach and online visibility.